


no one's ever looked at me that way

by venndaai



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Epilogue Rescue, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22644886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Dorian wakes, and he’s warm, and nothing hurts.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	no one's ever looked at me that way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



Dorian wakes, and he’s warm, and nothing hurts. It feels like he’s tucked into bed- his own bed, even, with the familiar weight of the down-stuffed coverlet, and a cool Nevarran breeze drifting over his face. So he sighs, wriggles his pain-free toes, and turns on his side, expecting that the solid gray shape of Bull will be there next to him in the bed when he opens his eyes. It’s a familiar dream, and he might as well enjoy it while it lasts. 

His eyelids feel extraordinarily heavy, and he starts to feel afraid, trying to open them, that the effort will wake him up. But eventually he must succeed in lifting them, because now he’s looking at the familiar gold-trimmed floral wallpaper of the villa bedroom, late morning sunlight giving the paper flowers the illusion of motion as the shadow of an outside tree dances across the wall.

But no Bull. Dorian sighs. Not every dream can be perfect, of course, but he’s afraid he’s not going to get too many more of them, and it makes the disappointment cut sharper. 

“Kadan?” At first Dorian isn’t sure whether he really heard the word, or if it just arrived in his mind, the way words sometimes do in dreams, but thinking about it, he knows he heard a hoarse whisper. He lifts his head a little, shifts. 

Bull is sitting in the parlor armchair, except it’s in the bedroom, and that doesn’t fit, but the thing that really doesn’t fit is that Bull looks appalling. There’s bandages wrapped around his skull and shoulder, and his torso is covered in bruises in the yellow, week-old stage of healing. Dorian has seen those kinds of accessories on the Bull before. He hasn’t seen the deep shadow beneath the Bull’s eye, or the redness in it, the burst blood vessels. He hasn’t seen streaks of white shooting through the Bull’s beard. 

Dorian feels his heart pounding. He opens his mouth, intending to express something along the lines of “oh, Maker, am I awake?” but no sound comes out. 

“Hey,” Bull says, “hey, take it easy, let me get you some water. Take it easy, Dorian.”

Dorian swallows. His throat is dry, but more than that, he feels horribly, terrifyingly weak. “I’m awake,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Bull says. “Here, drink this.” He’s not in the chair any more, he’s up close, within arm’s reach. That makes Dorian feel better. There’s a cup at his lips. He drinks. The water tastes wonderful. 

“You’re safe,” Bull says. He wipes at Dorian’s mouth with a cloth, and then smooths his hair back from his face. The motions are unbearably gentle. “We’re home. The boys are downstairs.”

Experimentally, Dorian shifts. There’s still no pain, but he can feel the weakness, like a weight on every part of him, and he can feel, too, the sharpness of his bones grinding against each other. The weeks of starvation in the cellar weren’t a dream. But he’s not there any more.

He weeps, then. It’s pathetic and embarrassing, and Bull just keeps holding his hand, three fingers rubbing softly against Dorian’s palm, and he just keeps looking at Dorian, just gazing at his face as he cries.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Dorian says, when he’s a little more under control. 

“Then you’d be-” Bull says, and stops. His three-fingered hand comes up to brush Dorian’s cheek, still softer than he’s ever been before, even at his most maudlin, but shaking so badly it’s almost like being tickled with a feather. The ghost of a touch. “You weren’t doing great when we got to you,” he says. “What do you remember?”

When Dorian thinks about it, vague scraps of memories surface. Darkness, and the crackle of a campfire. Potions being forced down his throat. A huge hot arm around him, cradling him, and a dear familiar voice begging him for something.

“I clearly made some strategic errors,” Dorian says. “I should have paid for them. That was our deal.” 

Now there are hands touching both sides of his face, and Dorian’s vision is blurring again. He squeezes his eyes shut. 

“Think we need to renegotiate, then,” Bull says. “I can’t-” He stops again. Dorian listens to him breathe, big, unsteady, loud breaths. Dorian has never known him this off balance. The hands on Dorian’s face are trembling, but they’re still so carefully gentle. The Bull doesn’t touch Dorian like this. He’s not careless, but he’s rough and tumble, a slap on the ass or an arm slung around a shoulder, a firm unyielding grip on Dorian’s wrists or a hot passionate kiss. He doesn’t treat Dorian like he’s glass. Dorian doesn’t want to be treated like that. He doesn’t want to have the power to bring the Iron Bull across three hundred miles and make him look so ravaged and desperate. 

The Bull lets go of Dorian’s face, and then he feels pressure on his hand, as Bull holds it, lifts it to his mouth and presses dry kisses to his palm. 

“Oh, stop that, you ridiculous sap,” Dorian says, and hates the way his voice breaks. “At least lie down. You look exhausted.”

As always, the bed creaks when the Bull sits on it. Familiar little sounds. Dorian rests his head against the big gray shoulder, and when Bull takes his hand again, he doesn’t complain. 


End file.
